The first news of the Battle of Jutland in 1916 startled the British public, who had looked forward to an emphatic victory at sea. Geoffrey Bennett asks, what exactly happened in the course of this momentous and controversial engagement?

Under the terms of the Armistice, writes Geoffrey Bennett, the ships of the German High Sea Fleet were interned and not surrendered. Hence they were manned by their own crews, who eight months later were able to carry out “an act of treachery.”